


AN OLD VOLUNTEER REMEMBERS THE SCHISM

by schmelloffel



Category: A Series of Unfortunate Events - Lemony Snicket
Genre: Gen, vfd
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2018-04-10
Updated: 2018-04-10
Packaged: 2019-04-21 07:32:01
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 676
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/14280045
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/schmelloffel/pseuds/schmelloffel
Summary: Once, there was a volunteer fire department. They fought fires however they knew, in every way and every place they could. Unfortunately, fire spreads.





	AN OLD VOLUNTEER REMEMBERS THE SCHISM

AN OLD VOLUNTEER REMEMBERS THE SCHISM, 1.  
I remember how it was when I was in, the meetings in the endless halls of green wood, the men in Academic/Philosophical getting up on stage to posit a new definition of firefighting to riotous applause, touring the Sea Division’s submarines by the old docks, the parties and operas and us Physical Firefighting tyros moving fast to apprehend some firestarter in the street, Commander Snicket getting awards from the government, the heady nights at Old Barracks.

It wasn’t supposed to end like this. When I was in, you could count on your leadership to set you right. Snicket in Academic/Philosophical and Baudelaire in Physical Firefighting. They had us locked up tight, they did. Not to say it was all fun and games…

I remember sometime about five years ago, someone fingered a serial arsonist for us. We rolled out all guns blazing, analyzed his burning patterns, figured where he lived and where he might strike next. Those stakeouts were something, no Police presence breathing down our neck, lying in those awful rubberized rain suits (remember them?) in the soaking grass, binos pressed to our eyes, waiting for him to show.

I was on when we caught him, right as he was setting the McPearson fire. We had an all-night job putting it out, digging heavy ditches on the grounds to prevent spread, soaking the house with water, jerry-rigging those hoses to the lake when the hydrant burst. We had him trussed up by the command car.

As the sun came up, somebody shot him. That was my first inkling that something was going wrong. The guns were mostly ceremonial and for guard duty, so we’d all figured. But then A/P came out with a brand-new definition of firefighting, and soon after it seemed like we were up to our knees in blood.

Snicket nearly lost his damn mind. He went from the slickest young fellow you’d ever seen, to a skinny, haggard shadow of his former self. His uniforms hung off his like tents, he barely shaved or ate. Man always refused to carry a weapon, even when the Police started cracking down, even when we got expelled from Redonja. He had never supported the killing, we’d heard there had been some sort of palace revolt in A/P and he had nearly been cashiered. He’d had to accept the killing just to stay on.

Baudelaire changed too, clammed up, cut his hours for his family and stopped going on ex with us. He seemed to have utterly lost his nerve. Surely he lost control over us. Discipline went down the tubes, whole ops got stalled because of lack of orders. No one updated the radio protocols for nine months. Those were the bad days, when you’d drive twenty miles on a bad tip, and it culminated when five members of Bukowski’s platoon got in a six-hour firefight with the Police and various gangers on the main street. No one was even reprimanded, and that was when we knew we’d officially become a joke.

Quagmire, who had always been the loyal second-in-command, went completely to seed. He spent all his time in his office drunk and delegated everything to Widdershins, who was a young sea-dog who had presumptive command of the Sea Division. Widdershins, who loved only the sea and his daughter, was in entirely over his head and spent all his time supervising the construction of a new submarine.

A/P sunk deeper into ridiculous, bloodthirsty pedantry, and soon we were acting as only errand boys for their ever stranger schemes. Out of the swirling storm, one figure fixes in my mind. I saw him for the first time sobbing his eyes out when the Duchess of Winnipeg was assassinated– you remember, at Sebald’s party– he was a rising young officer in A/P, already the commander of a research section. A good man, or say they tell me, before things got nasty. Olaf was his name. I don’t think I could ever forget it.


End file.
